Looking forward to getting back to real league football again, and the Spurs match should be a cracker. 2 worldy managers going head to head. I have a feeling this is going to be our best chance against Spurs this season as Conte still hasnt had time with his International players, so we hope for yet another weak, insipid Spurs team with no energy. 3 away points for me this one lets hope Im correct. On the subject of Conte and Spurs, most pundits are claiming that they will spend up to £400m this January simply because Conte has demanded new blood if he is to get them a European place this season. This will smash the transfer market and will also increase/inflate prices. Lots of players will move which should ease log jams around Europe, not sure if this will help Leeds or make things worse? However Spurs, Newcastle and Norwich are all about to spend big and you can also factor in Wolves and Villa too. So there are players from these clubs that will also be surplus? Still on transfers Barcelona have already confirmed that any player who comes in will be a free transfer and there will also have to be a player going out to accommodate the new arrival. Serious financial problems at this club but they now have Xavi back as head coach and he is bringing in some old favourites on freebies which means he needs to sell some players? When we fans demand that the club should break the bank for new players, should we at the same time think about the investments we have made with our kids recently. The 4 kids we brought in for our first season in the Prem are now all U21 Internationals, plus Cresswell has also made the jump too. All these 5 19yo kids are also first team players now. Thats an amazing stat and mainly caused by injury but all 5 have shown Bielsa that they are ready and unlike previous kids will not be going out on loan as they are too valuable to the squad. Less than £4m invested and we have 5 U21 Internationals who will all be worth way way more than what we invested. We also have a couple of Norwegian U21 Internationals too who also sit on the first team bench Klaesson and Hjelde and Hjelde is only 17yo but now a regular for Norway. Add into this Meslier who is France’s U21 keeper. Little cash outlay yet again but worth lots of money now. Factor in Amari Miller, Lewis Bate, Sean McGurk and upgraded contract for Donny Van Den Heuval and we can see some serious green shoots for the future. I think the club have been brilliant in investing in youth, but top end youth and think taking this in conjunction with the International senior players brought in, we are on a sound footing. I suspect we will soon see serious amounts of cash saved on players we dont have to go out and buy because we already have him…… We can all remember the seasons when we came so close to promotion but always fell away after Xmas. The season we came up from L1 with Southampton and the following season when we should have won back to back promotions with Southampton but we failed and watched them go up to the Prem. The season we saw Norwich smash it and go up same when we saw Wolves break records and go up. The one I remember most though was how QPR outplayed everyone to go up, but it was all about Adel Taarabt. He was by far the best player in the league and probably on the planet that season. Scoring goals for fun, assists and the way he beat players was amazing to see. Think there must be plenty on here who remembers him but what yhe hell happened to him. He must have believed his own press, he wouldn't train properly, he put on loads of weight and in 2 seasons only scored 7 goals. What a waste and where is he now because I cant be arsed searching for him as he doesn't deserve the effort. In the last year we have seen some serious heart problems occurring in top class football. We all saw Erickson and now we also have Aguero, and just months before Erickson there was a Dutch International who is back playing for Ajax. Before these though we only had Fabrice Muamba who was lucky to be alive, but why are we seeing more and more heart issues this year than ever before. There is a theory that the covid jab is at fault. At first I just thought it a conspiracy theory but if you remember the JCVI when talking about jabbing kids at school refused to say it agreed to do it, they left it to the government to decide. The reason was that in a small minority of cases a side effect of swelling of the heart happens and that can lead to serious heart situation for a bery small number of kids. So their view was that they wouldn't recommend the jab as the virus was safe for more kids than the jab. Very very very small numbers could be effected. So if the same thing happens in fit young people could this be the reason?
Taarabt plays for Benfica Doc Although it's only in the last couple of seasons that he has started to appear for them regularly, playing a similar role as Kalvin does for us
He would probably need to lose another stone if he was in a Bielsa team, but from the few games I've seen of Benfica, he's played well, but as I edited in my above post, he is more of a sitting defensive midfield player now, who collects the ball and sprays passes forward, and with the pace of the Portuguese game, guess he can get away with not being "Bielsa fit"
Now looks like I was correct and this deal about to happen, which means we will see Joffy’s replacement in the 23s “He said: “Espanyol and Leeds bring positions closer together and close the transfer of Mateo Joseph. “In the absence of a signature, which will take place in the next few hours, the Cantabrian will play in England from January 1.”
Let us hope that young Mateo turns out to be as good as the recent additions to our U23s. Orta and Bielsa really know what they want and have done brilliantly this last 12 months or so. Its not always success though as a few of Orta’s kids havent worked out, but that could just be because Bielsa didnt choose them? I still hope Bogusz is going to work out, but Hugo Diaz, Rafa Mujica, and Kun havent worked out so well
Still on transfers Barcelona have already confirmed that any player who comes in will be a free transfer and there will also have to be a player going out to accommodate the new arrival. Serious financial problems at this club but they now haveXavi back as head coach and he is bringing in some old favourites on freebies which means he needs to sell some players? Barca have just resigned Dani Alves, brasilian who played for them for 8 years and has won everything apart from a world cup. He is now 38, and as barca have spent all their cash on xavi and his backroom staff, Alves will be paid the minimum wage allowed by la liga, 155000€ a year, yes a year not a week!
La Liga came out a few weeks ago and said the settlement for the outgoing manager and his staff would not count against the salary limits at Barcelona, so my guess (which could be wrong and you are local to reality) is that management and staff are not counted in the same pot?
Another BBC bit on Barcelona only signing freebies Chelsea defenders Cesar Azpilicueta and Andreas Christensen are transfer targets for new Barcelona boss Xavi who is looking to sign the pair on free transfers. Azpilicueta, 32, and Christensen, 25, are both out of contract next summer. (Express)
There is a debate around freebies to be had and if you look at Jesse Lingard for example. WHU want to buy him for £10m in January and Spurs want him next summer for free. Is £10m club chicken feed in the Prem, but I think there is a bigger picture on freebies because of wages. If Lingard goes in January he will have to agree wages and personal terms. If he waits until June he can negotiate a much higher wage because the club are not paying the £10m transfer fee
He’d never be approved by Bielsa but if given the chance I’d snap him (Lingard) up at £10m in January. The downside would be he is 28 you’d want him to sign a 4 year contract so he’d have zero sell on value.
So just a letter change then. What a load of twaddle. Will it make womens football more interesting to watch?.
Oscar Tabarez has left the Uruguay National job, wonder where he will end up or is he retiring. Tabarez has been the most succesful Uruguay National team manager ever. He has even won the coveted best coach in the world trophy from FIFA…… will John Terry do the same I wonder
